


She Can Take You or Leave You

by mcgarrygirl78



Series: Feels Like Heaven [11]
Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Banter, F/M, Humor, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-29
Updated: 2016-02-29
Packaged: 2018-05-23 21:44:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6131104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mcgarrygirl78/pseuds/mcgarrygirl78
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Her gut was telling her not to get in too deep but that wasn’t the same thing.  She also found she wasn’t quite listening.</p>
            </blockquote>





	She Can Take You or Leave You

**Author's Note:**

> This is it, this brunch would be the event that started it all in my Tuckson universe. I wrote two fics in one day, which is rare for me but when the characters want to talk, I want to listen and I want to write. The title comes from the Billy Joel song, She’s Always a Woman. Billy Joel songs are the epitome of this ship for me.

“Ed Tucker.” There was static but little else on the other end of his phone. “Hello?”

“Tucker?”

“Yes. Hello?”

“Tucker?”

“Yes. Olivia? Benson, is that you?”

“It’s Olivia, can you hear me?”

“Barely. Where the hell are you, the Holland Tunnel? Are you alright?”

“I'm OK, hold on just a second, I'm trying to…” 

There was more static and Tucker waited for something to happen. He was either going to hear Olivia’s voice or a busy signal or a dial tone…did cell phones have dial tones. His stomach dropped when he recognized her voice but then couldn’t make out what she was saying. Why his first thought would be something was terribly wrong, he didn’t know. Things had been off the rails lately so that wasn’t entirely crazy for him to think. Also it wasn’t as Olivia Benson ever called him to talk about the weather.

“Olivia?”

“OK, can you hear me now?” she asked.

“I can hear you. What's going on?”

“It’s this phone and my apartment, sometimes I live in a total dead zone. I'm literally standing in my kitchen with one knee in the air and one hand on the window sill just to get reception.”

“I really hope that’s not true.” He laughed. “If it is, send me a picture.”

“It is and I'm not sending you anything. I would go outside but it’s raining and Noah is napping.”

“How is young Mr. Benson?” Ed asked.

“He's good. Your castle was a huge hit. We opened it last night and Noah went wild for the knight and the horse. I poured a little water in the moat and he kept pushing the button to hear the voices and laughed. It was a lot of fun.”

“I thought he might like it. I almost got the farm with all the different animals but I knew he probably already had at least two of those. I had three when my kids were growing up. Little People farms are like the jackpot of the toddler toy world. Those and Duplo blocks.”

“I would be alright if we never had another Duplo block in the house again. I've stepped on them a million times. I should be eligible for disability at this point.”

“So I'm figuring this isn't a work call.” Ed said. “You surely would've gotten to the emergency by now.”

“You can try not to smirk about it.”

“I'm not smirking.”

“Pinky swear you're not smirking.” Liv said.

“Tell me how I can do that over the phone.”

“Do you like brunch?”

“Wow, this conversation is turning almost faster than I can keep up.”

Ed laughed a bit, he couldn’t help himself. He was sitting on a stoop in Hell’s Kitchen smoking a cigarette and watching people go by. It was raining but not hard enough for him to venture inside just yet. This was one of the few days in a month that he had the entire day off work. It was always nice not to be at the mercy of the NYPD’s shenanigans. It was even nicer to have Olivia Benson on the phone while doing so.

“It’s a simple question.”

“Well I've never been overly fond of the term brunch.” He replied. “It reminds me of something from a Wharton novel, something the stuffy protagonist engages in while never fulfilling his responsibility or potential. The concept of brunch, meaning breakfast in the afternoon, or any time really, I find to be perfectly acceptable and fascinating. Hello? Did I lose you?”

“I'm still here.”

His venture into geeky talk always gave Olivia pause. Just who the hell was Edward Tucker? There were so many parts of her that wanted to find out and other parts that were screaming danger Will Robinson. But Liv always listened to her gut and her gut wasn’t warning her that this was bad. Her gut was telling her not to get in too deep but that wasn’t the same thing. She also found she wasn’t quite listening. Danger indeed.

“We were talking about brunch.” Ed said.

“Would you like to have brunch tomorrow?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Camille’s in Harlem does a Sunday Soul brunch and I've been meaning to go forever now and I just haven’t found the time. I have the time now.”

“I love the Soul brunch.”

“So you've been before?” Liv asked.

“Yeah. I have brunch with my kids every other Sunday but on my off weekends I still venture out for food. It’s a great atmosphere and the food is amazing. Many people don’t realize that Southern style cuisine is popular in the Midwest as blacks migrated that way in droves during Reconstruction and the great northern migrations of the 1900s and 1920s. The food reminds me of home.”

“Where’s home?”

“Winona Lake, Indiana. Don’t bother looking for it on a map; you'll never find it. It’s 160 miles from Indianapolis.”

“I've never been to Indiana.”

“You're missing nothing…absolutely nothing.” He said. "We're obsessed with college basketball, high school wrestling, and driving down long dirt roads at 95 mph possibly shooting off rifles."

Liv laughed. The way she laughed made Ed laugh too. Was this a date? He’d asked her to dinner, twice, and been politely turned down. Ed wasn’t the kind of guy who wanted to make the third time a charm though he had been thinking about asking for another drink. Liv seemed comfortable with a couple glasses of wine and topical conversation. Now here she was asking him out to eat. Should he tease her or leave it alone?

“If you feed me, it might be hard to get rid of me after that. Tuckers are difficult that way.”

“I have three guns and a Taser…if I want you gone, you'll be gone.”

“Are those firearms approved by the NYPD, Sergeant?”

“That’s for me to know and you to never ask me about again.”

“I think I'm going to look at this like a date.” He said. “I could be wrong, and I'm OK with that, but I think my charm has gotten the best of you, Olivia Benson.”

“You're wrong. I just like brunch.”

“OK, keep telling yourself that.”

“Maybe, just maybe, you're not the biggest ass I've ever met. You're still an ass.”

“When you say it like that, it’s like a badge of honor.” Ed said. “I'm an ass and you're…very pretty.”

“Don’t call me pretty.” She said.

“I can't call you pretty?” OK, you're…you're fierce. You're smart, you're bold as hell, you're tough, and you are very pretty.”

“Stop.” She laughed. “Ed…”

“OK, I’ll stop. What time should I meet you tomorrow?”

“I made the reservation for 1:30 so we can meet there.” Liv replied.

“I’ll be there.”

“OK.”

“Let the record show that you had me at brunch, Olivia.” He said.

She definitely wasn’t going to say that he had her at ‘or can I buy you a drink’ because that wasn’t quite true. It was close though and Liv still didn’t know what she was thinking when she didn’t walk away. It was a nice evening, just two cops drinking and trying not to talk about work. An hour or so talking about baseball and duck hunting had never been so interesting. And it was just the respite Olivia needed as the Amaro family imploded all around her. 

Since then he had been a respite a few more times. Was brunch tomorrow a date? She didn’t want to say either way. Liv did know that calling it respite for too much longer wasn’t really going to work.

“I'm going to wear something nice tomorrow.” She said. “I'm not opposed to you doing the same.”

“So this isn't a jeans and Zeppelin tee shirt kind of party?”

“No.”

“I think I have something I can throw on.”

“And I think I might be able to come up with a few nice comments about what you're wearing.”

“I will respond in kind. I'm nothing if not raised right.”

“So, I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Yeah.” Ed nodded. “I'm looking forward to it.”

“So am I.”

“Did that hurt as much as you imagined it would?”

“What makes you think I ever imagined it?” Liv countered.

“Ouch, Sergeant, touché.”

“I gotta go.” She said.

“I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Goodbye.”

Ed hardly wanted to hang up first but he did. He slipped the phone into his pocket, relaxing on the stoop for a few more minutes. It was impossible to stop the smile spreading across his face. This woman was going to be the death of him, he knew it. 

Ed would enjoy every minute of it, surely it would be glorious, but it would be death just the same. So why couldn’t he stop smiling? He wondered what her face looked like right now. Unable to stop himself, Ed pulled his phone and sent a text.

‘ _Try to stop smiling, Sergeant, I dare you_.’ –Tucker 

_‘I’ll say something that you're used to hearing from me, Tucker. No_.’ –Olivia

***


End file.
